Charon
Charon
Ina former number, we have given some account of the heathen deities: we must now say a few words of old Charon, whom the ancients considered one of the gods of Hell. He was supposed to be the son of Erebus or Darkness, and Nox or Night,—and his duty was to conduct the souls of the dead in a boat over the river Styx, to the infernal regions. He was, therefore, a ferryman, and received a penny for each passenger. Such souls, however, as had not been honored with a funeral, were not permitted to enter Charon’s boat, without previously wandering on the shore for one hundred years. Accordingly, the ancients thought it a dreadful thing to have no burial.
If the soul of any person presented himself to cross the Stygian river, he could not be admitted before he showed Charon a golden bough, which he had received from the Sibyl. This law was so strict, that Charon was once imprisoned for a year, because he ferried over Hercules, without the passport. It did not matter that he was forced to do it by the hero.
Charon is represented in the ancient descriptions as an old robust man, with a hideous countenance, long white beard, and piercing eyes. His garment is ragged and filthy, and his forehead is covered with wrinkles. As all the dead were obliged to pay a small piece of money for their admission to the boat, it was always usual among the ancients to place under the tongue of the deceased a piece of money for Charon.
This fable of Charon and his boat, which became a part of the religious creed of the Greeks and Romans, was borrowed from the Egyptians, whose dead were carried across a lake, where sentence was passed upon them, and, according to their good or bad actions, they were honored with a splendid burial, or left unnoticed in the open air.